


Getting Down the Germs

by plasticbu11ets



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: Escape, Fast Cars, Forced Medication, Neopronouns, Nonbinary Party Poison, Violence, Vomit, detailed claustrophobia/claustrophobic situation, explosion 8|, getting down the germs reference, getting watched in ur sleep, nonbinary korse, that all makes it sound very crazy but most of the story is pretty chill, tw for:
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28840776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plasticbu11ets/pseuds/plasticbu11ets
Summary: Korse and Party Poison run away from BLI, but the fun doesn't stop there, as they both have to deal with loss, hatred, and the harsh social life that comes with living among killjoys.Not canon compliant- though most things are essentially the same, or are adapted only slightly. Party is referred to as gerard once, but is not based off him (no character is based on their real-life equivalent).Korse- it/itsParty- he/hir





	Getting Down the Germs

Korse sighed, sitting back in its chair. The scarecrow was in its room, at its desk, and it’d turned the lights down. It was currently failing to focus on a spreadsheet. Korse stood up, and crossed the room, settling next to a window. The pride it felt was real, or maybe it was conditioning- it had always been hard to tell.

The next morning, it woke up in its bed, took its pills, and turned in the spreadsheet like it was expected to. It met with a doctor to go over how the germs worked one last time, though Korse wouldn’t be the one administering them. It would mostly be there to supervise, and later to interrogate.

After the meeting with the doctor, and after lunch, it went in to see the captive. The dracs hadn’t come yet, and the captive was still asleep. only the green-tinted emergency lights were on in the small room. The name the killjoy went by was Party Poison, and he’d been imprisoned last night. The policy they were following mandated that he be restrained, isolated, kept unconscious until the interrogation took place, in this case, the administration of the germs... There was a long list of rules being followed, and for now all they were doing was giving Korse a moment to watch the captive. Pulling out the smooth white chair, it sat across the table from Party, and observed. It saw that hir nails had dirt under them, that hir bracelets were dirty too. Poison’s hat shaded hir from what little light was in the room.

_ It’s probably more effective in the desert. _ The hat had roses embroidered on it, and looked worn around the edges. Looking closer at the pelerine the prisoner was wearing, it saw roses there in the lace too. 

Scientists, speculators, both said the desert could make you do weird things, not always of your own free will. Korse wondered if it’d wear roses when it lived there, too. 

It walked over to the light, holding its hand in front of itself, and trying to imagine it dirty, maybe with a few rings, or a tattoo. It shook its head and left the room.

Coughing, Party came to in the white room, hir goth cowboy boots tapping softly against the floor.  _ Aw, gross _ , he thought,  _ that bastard was lying about the dracs taking my shoes _ . He tried to sit up and push what seemed to be a small bottle of salt away from hir nose, but found hir hands were fixed to the table, and hir chest to the back of hir chair.

“Do you mind?” he asked hoarsely, turning to look at the drac still holding the salts under hir nose, even though he was clearly awake.

“Hey!” As if in a stupor, the drac didn’t move, until a manicured hand took the bottle out of its hands, and capped it. Party’s mood dropped. The drac turned and walked off behind Party, out of hir field of vision, and Korse, the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W that had almost single-handedly built deadkilljoyville, population 116 and counting, took a seat across the table.

“Gerard,” Korse said, greeting hir with a smile.

“Beep, er, wrong password.”

“Arthur.”

“Actually, I’ve been going by Neo these days.” Party tried to subtly shake hir hands, twist hir ankles in their restraints, but Korse paid attention. Looked satisfied, even.

“You don’t even know why that’s funny,” it said, leaning back in its chair.

“I’m gonna fucking destroy you,” Party snarled, jerking hir shoulders. None of the restraints moved, BLI was good at manufacturing interrogation equipment. Party’s hat tipped forward with the commotion. 

_ Kinda nice of them to let me keep it _ , he thought, not moments before Korse reached across the table and pulled it off.

“I swear to destroya, the whole city’s gonna know when I get to you. I think i’m going to start with your teeth.”

“Don’t give us ideas, Mr. Anderson. The plan we have for you right now is actually rather non-violent.” Korse nodded to the drac. 

“Get the germs.”

“Gonna give me salmonella, bitch? Chicken pox?” Keeping hir eyes on Korse, who was watching hir closely, Poison tried to focus on freeing their arms, bracing their feet against the ground and pulling their back so hard they thought they were going to dislocate their wrists. 

“Quit that, you’re going to break your thumbs.” Poison pulled harder. Fuck hir thumbs.

“Don’t need them. Hey, Jet Star asked me, they said if I ever get the time to talk with you I should ask where you sleep. Do they keep you in a cage like a dog, or do they let you on the bed?” Korse sighed and crossed its legs, shuffling something out of its pocket.

“Oh yeah, guess we forgot you have chemtrails for brains, and-”

“You know why your whole rebellion thing is so pathetic?” Korse asked. Grinning, Poison scratched hir nails on the metal table.

“No, enlighten me.”

“You’re doing all this to ‘save humanity’ or something, because you want people to express themselves- I mean, what idiot came up of that? We got rid of world hunger! We got rid of malaria, the flu, homelessness-”

“Your city is literally the only city in the world. It’s only got like 80,000 people in it.”

“And you’d kill hundreds of them to-”

“We’re not the ones killing them! Where the fuck are those missing-”

“You kill yourselves to what, dress weird? To save  _ music _ ? Is that crap worth your family’s lives?”

“Fuck you,” Poison said, twisting and pulling against the straps holding hir down, feeling hir flesh burn against them. Through the hair that had fallen loose against hir face, he could see Korse sitting with its hands folded in its lap, hir hat set to the side.

_ I can’t move. I can’t move,  _ Party thought, over and over. He tried to calm down the rage and fear stuck in his chest.

_ If you can’t move, don’t move. _ He breathed deep, in and out, calming hir body until it barely trembled.

Korse picked up the hat and began turning it in its hands

“Do you know what the germs are?” Poison kept hir eyes firmly on hir fists, where they were braced against the table. 

“Hello, Mr. Anderson? Do you know what they do to people like you?” Korse stood and rounded the table, approaching Poison.

“I like your piercings,” it said, reaching to touch the one through hir lip. Party snapped forward to bite its hand, and soon found it slapped over hir jaw, and a pill slipped in hir mouth. 

The outside of the pill was dry and stuck in hir throat, and it made hir cough. Korse tipped back hir head, to where it was looking straight down on hir, and quickly mouthed, “swallow it.” It let go of hir face, and continued pacing behind hir. Panicked, Poison put hir head down and coughed again, pushing the pill to the front of hir teeth. He didn’t know whether to swallow it, and could already feel the pill starting to dissolve. He looked to hir left and right, but couldn’t see where Korse was standing behind hir. 

“The germs we’re about to give you are a modified version of what we give our draculoids,” Korse started.  _ What the fuck, is it hiding somethng from BLI?  _

“Soon enough, we won’t even have to interrogate you. The germs will help you answer.” Poison tried to guess what the hell was going on, but the only thing he could think of was that he’d been slipped a suicide pill, in which case.. It was better to die than to be subjected to whatever pertri-dish freakshow BLI had cooked up, and to betray the rest of the killjoys. Besides, if Korse was going against BLI now, the enemy of an enemy was a friend, right? He swallowed the pill. Maybe it was the placebo effect, but he already felt sick.

“Ah, here they are,” he heard Korse mutter from somewhere behind hir. It didn’t sound happy. The latch of the door clicked open, and Party’s stomach turned. He kept hir head down, trying to watch for shadows or any record of movement behind hir. He could hear a cart rolling, glass clinking… Something being plugged in, a plastic bag being opened. Cardboard ripped, and someone put on a pair of plastic gloves.  _ That can’t be good. _ A drac came up from behind with a tongue depressor and a can of what looked like smooth, gray power pup. Poison turned hir head and clenched hir jaw in advance defiance, but no one moved to open hir mouth. He just felt something wet, and grossly warm, being spread on hir arm, and looked back in time to see the drac popping the cap back on the can. A lamp was placed in front of hir, and flicked on. The bright gray light seemed to shine right through to the back of hir skull, filling hir whole field of vision. He heard the cart roll, and called out.

“Korse!” He tried to look down and found he couldn’t quite see hir arms.

“Korse, were those the germs?” He didn’t get an answer, and the door clicked shut. The room got very quiet.

“Korse, what the fuck!” he squirmed in hir seat again, the restraints making hir claustrophobic. He twisted hir spine, kicked hir legs, thinking that if he could just break the straps on hir chest or hir ankles, he’d be able to move enough to get the gray light out of hir head, but, BLI-brand synthetic metal-leather was strong, and he stayed where he was until all feeling faded away.

Party was getting tired of rude awakenings, first with salts, now with water, as some asshole was… Doing something with water... Party couldn’t quite tell what was happening, but something felt cold and wet, and he could... hear? a faucet running. 

_ Yeah, the faucet is, uh… _ Cold water trickled down from hir head and Party felt hirself pop back to lucidity. He was sitting on a tile floor next to a sink, and someone in gray- Korse- was crouched in front of hir, holding a hand to hir forehead as if to check hir temperature. Poison pushed its hand away and sat up, groaning at the soreness in hir joints.

“What the fuck’s going on.” He ran a hand through hir hair.

“Where the hell am I, and where’s my hat.” Korse grinned and sat back, looking almost surprised.

“Well! I wasn’t sure that was going to work,” it said.

“What are you doing?” Party asked. Hir eyes flicked around the bathroom, but didn’t see anything besides the bathroom, no torture equipment or germ-carts.

“How long was I out?” Korse waved its hand dismissively.

“You were put under in the afternoon, it’s nighttime now. And look, I’ve got your hat, try and stand up, we’re leaving BLI.” Korse pulled Poison’s hat from where it’d clipped it to its belt. Party took it back, fussing a little over the mark the clip had left before putting it back on hir head and pulling low the brim.

“ _ We _ are leaving BLI? Where do you think you’re gonna go?”

“To where it’s habitable? Uh, wherever it is you and your killjoys live?” Poison laughed in its face, and its tone dropped.

“Look, alright, I get that we’ve fought-” Korse started, before being interrupted by Poison.

“Shut up with all that. You just strapped me to a chair and poisoned me, said you’d kill my family, you don’t get to apologize,” he said, agitated.

“Yeah, I’m not trying to apologize for it. It’s all besides the point. I have the knowledge you need to take down BLI, or to liberate its citizens, whatever it is you want, and the knowledge you need to escape this place, and you know how to live in the desert. Working together is mutually beneficial.”

Poison frowned, suspicious that he was being tricked, but willing to play along. If being tricked got hir out of the city, then who cared.

“Whatever, desert’s big, we’ll find somewhere to put you. Everyone out there fuckin’ hates you though, you know that, right? We do an anti-festival on your birthday like every month.”

Korse squinted. “I’ll be ok.”

“Alright then, let’s go. Vents or hallway?”

“Hallway, the vents have patricide.” Korse stood, unholstered its gun, and started for the bathroom door.

“You mean pesticide?” Poison said, and tried to stand up.

“No. Oh, are you ok?” Party had gotten to one knee, and been struck with terrible nausea. He felt like hir guts were gonna boil out onto the floor.

“Yeah man, I’ll be- hoo, just give me a second, ok?” He swayed, bracing hirself on the sink for a moment, before standing up the rest of the way and vomiting twice into the sink. He spat before swinging over to the next faucet and getting a drink.

“Arright, uh, let’s go.”

It turned out that Korse had taken Party to a bathroom close to the outside, so they were already in a pretty good spot to leave. As they went, Korse explained its plan.

“There are two guards checking people in and out. I’ll go to them by myself, and once they open the door, I’ll take care of them, and you can come through. You’ll have to run. My car is parked outside. It’ll detonate around five minutes after we leave, but it’s the fastest thing around and can take us almost out of the city. From there-”

“Your car detonates?”

“Yeah, if someone pushes the destruct button.”

“Taking a car that’s gonna blow up sounds kinda dumb,” Party objected. “What if it goes off early?”

“I built it. I know when it’s going to blow up. Besides, you can’t just outrun guns, Poison, we need a car.”

“Alright man, you can’t blame me for not wanting to ride a bomb.” Korse shook its head.

“Anyway. We take the car, we should end up a minute or two from the edge of the city. I have a key that can unlock citizen’s cars, so we’ll take one of those. Since we’ll be heading into the desert, you’ll drive from there. Whichever car we take should have enough gas to go fifteen kilometers. Is that enough?”

“Uhh, yeah. Should be.” He nodded. “Yeah, I’m not that sure how far a kilometer is, but that sounds like enough to get us to the mountains.”

“Great. Around this corner is the door, remember to run. Get there before the door closes, ok?”

Korse straightened up, its face became blank and emotionless. It turned the corner, and Party leaned hirself against the wall to listen for gunshots. After a while, they came, one, two, then Party turned the corner and ran. Blank white walls stretched forward in front of hir.

_ Oh, this is a long hallway. _

He ran, and was still running when the door slid shut. Cursing, he ran up to the guard’s podium, and saw the button for the door. He pressed it, and a keypad popped up on the screen to hir right.

Poison looked around for a notepad or something that would have the password listed, but didn’t see any. Starting to panic, he checked the dead drac’s pockets, but they were empty. At least one of them had a gun, which he took. As he was standing up, he noticed a flash of blue under where the button was. He grabbed at it, and to hir relief, it was a slip of paper with the passcode written on it. He punched it in as fast as possible and was in the parking lot, gun ready, before the door was even fully open. Korse wasn’t there waiting for hir. 

_ Fuck _ . 

He started running down the street, in the hopes of at least putting some distance between hirself and the hospital-penitentiary. Only a few yards down the road, he heard a loud engine, and looked back to see a car speeding for hir. He quickly ran to take shelter in a nearby alley, pulling out the gun he’d stolen from the drac. Peeking around the corner, he tried to fire it at the car, but the gun didn’t shoot.

_??? _

_ It must have a safety. _

He scrambled to turn it off, hearing the car catch up to hir as he did. Soon enough hir fingers found the small switch under the handle of the gun, flicked it off, and fired the gun. A bolt of blue light shot out towards the other side of the street, and Party was soon up and aiming at the oncoming car. He took one, two shots at its windshield and tires, but it was dark, and the car was swerving, so they missed. He started to aim again, but whoever was in the car hit the horn rapidly, and Party paused for a moment.

_ Oh, whoops. That must be Korse. _ He lowered the gun and waved in apology.

The car slammed to a halt in front of him, and Party ran around to get in the passenger seat.

“Four minutes,” it said, accelerating. It tore through the streets, which thankfully were straight and uncrowded. No citizens were out after curfew except for a few cops, who stuck to the curbs like gum. Seven streets down Korse took a hard left turn, and Party grabbed the side of the seat to avoid being bucked into the wall.

“You made this thing?” He asked, examining the stitches in the leather. Korse spared a glance to its right, and sighed.

“Top to bottom. I’ll miss it,” it said, rubbing its thumb on the steering wheel. Its eyes refocused on the road. “Two minutes. This time, get through the door on the first try, if you can.”

“Oh, shut up, you didn’t tell me the hallway was so fucking long.” Party looked over the drac’s gun in hir lap. It was white and bland, and had a different texture than hir normal gun.

“Why’d they let you build the car? I thought things like that weren’t allowed anymore.”

“It was part of becoming a scarecrow.”

“I don’t see why you have to build a car before you start hunting dissidents,” Party said, watching the city whip by.

“Shh, I’m trying to drive,” Korse said, squinting and leaning close to the wheel. Party sighed and rested hir head on the window. He could feel the wave of adrenaline he’d been coasting on start to ebb away.

_ We’re not out of the woods yet, _ he reminded himself. In the rearview mirror he could see the headlights of cars behind them begin to reflect off the buildings.

Korse’s hands tensed on the steering wheel, and he checked the car’s clock. It’s eyes widened, and it slammed on the brakes, throwing Poison forward against the dash.

“Out, out now, we’re a minute over,” it said, running around the car and pulling Poison from the door.

“Shit,” Poison said, scrambling to grab the gun that had fell to the ground. He picked it up and started running to catch up with Korse. He was only a few feet behind it when the car exploded, the force knocking both of them forward against the pavement. Poison could feel the blood on hir palms, and spent a few moments against the cool ground, catching hir breath, before pushing hirself up and standing. Korse was halfway up as well, shaking out its hands  
“C’mon,” He said, pulling Korse up by an arm. He looked back and saw the headlights of the following cars growing more intense.

“We’ve got to go.” The scarecrow nodded, wiped its face a last time, and they were back off, running toward the nearest parked car. They could see the gate in the distance, but that wasn’t what Poison was watching for, he was watching for people in the windows. Despite the explosion, and despite the swarm of drac cars coming ever closer, no one had turned their lights on. He hoped the citizens could see them escaping, even if he couldn’t see them.

Korse unlocked the first car they came up to, a light blue BLI-brand. Poison got in the driver’s seat, and once Korse was in the passenger, turned the car on, and took off. Korse reached its hand to the area behind the steering wheel and pressed. The hatch covering a spot similar to where you’d usually go to start the engine popped open, and Korse inserted the key, looking sick.

“Drive through the fence. It’s not that strong.” Poison nodded, and clipped hir seatbelt on too. In the rearview mirror he could see cars coming up behind them, and pushed the gas pedal down as far as it could go. Even then it wasn’t going as fast as Korse’s car had, and he hoped it’d make it through the fence, which was rapidly approaching. He started counting down as they got closer, 5, 4, 3, he closed his eyes at 2, not opening them till he felt the car slam into something, making a sound like it was in pain. He opened his eyes and saw that they were still moving, had broken past the wooden fence and were out in the desert, and let out a whoop of excitement, punching Korse’s arm. It looked considerably less happy than he did. Poison ducked down for a moment, craning hir neck to see over the steering wheel, to take two lollipops out of hir boot. Unwrapping one with hir teeth, he popped it into hir mouth, and offered the other one to Korse, who refused it.

“Don’t be such a bummer, Korse. They melted your brain, really, it’s better out here. You can feel the waves already.” He dropped the lollipop into Korse’s lap, and focused on trying to spot a paved road or flat patch of dirt through the dark of the night.

After a while of quiet driving, Poison slowed down the car.

“From here we should walk to the mountains, and send the car off further down the road so they don’t know where we stopped,” he said through a yawn. Korse agreed and got out, slipping its lollipop in its pocket. It grabbed a large rock from just off the road, and handed it to Poison, who’d switched on hir head lamp, to set on the car’s gas. Korse started walking toward the mountains, but stopped when it felt a hand on its shoulder. Turning around, it saw Party standing there, with one hand on the drac’s gun, which had taken the place of Poison’s regular blaster in hir holster.

“I think from now on, I should have your gun,” He said, holding out a hand.

“What? No.”

“Let me have it, or I shoot you right now,” Poison said. “We’ve been fighting BLI for years, we don’t really need your help.”

“That’s exactly why I need the gun. You know I’m going to be shot at on sight.”

“So what, you shoot back, kill more of my friends?” Poison said, voice rising.

“Well, no, if they leave me alone, then I won’t-” In the red glow of Party’s head lamp, it saw hir arm move to pull the gun out of the holster, and Korse quickly stepped forward to knock hir hand, making hir drop the gun to the ground. It quickly blocked a blow from Party’s left, then right hand, and went to pull out its gun, but was struck in the stomach before it could. It doubled over, and was shoved roughly to the ground.

“Don’t you  _ ever _ fucking act like I or my friends owe you shit,” Party said, walking towards it. He kicked it repeatedly wherever he could, on its back, arms, abdomen. Korse covered its face with its arm and tried to breathe through the kicks to its chest, rolling over onto its front.

“Even your own life. Any killjoy that fires at you is right to do so.” Korse lay still. Party knelt down, took the gun from Korse’s hip.

“Get up,” He said, pocketing the second gun. “You’ve kicked Show Pony half to death before, bruised the shit out of their ribs, and they still walked back to us fine. You’ll live.” Korse shook its head, and slowly eased itself off the ground. Once it was standing, Party gestured for it to follow hir. Korse couldn’t exactly refuse, it knew it would die in the desert without a guide, and so they started walking off towards the mountains.

The walk was quiet, except for Korse’s labored breathing, and they made it to the mountains as the sun was coming up.

“Waves are too loud during the day. We’ll sleep ‘till the afternoon, and then we can head to the house.” Korse nodded, and followed Party as he traipsed around the rocks at the base of the mountain, looking for a way in. Eventually they came to a cave, though it was more like a hole, as it was only about the size of a small bathroom. Party went in first, and after a quick inspection, flopped down against one of the walls. Korse came in slower, holding its arm above its head. After a minute, Party realized it was trying not to walk into spiderwebs, and he laughed.

“Hey, don’t worry, killer, there’s no spiders in the zones anymore, no bugs or anything,” Party said, laying down and wedging hirself in between the rock wall and the floor. He tucked the guns behind hirself, pulled the hat over hir face, and turned towards the wall.

“People, and the animals that stick around them, are the only ones smart enough to survive. By the way, don’t forget to cover your eyes. Just in case waves get in.” Korse didn’t say anything, but Poison could hear it moving around behind hir. 

In the privacy of the dark space between hir chest and the wall, Poison pulled off one of hir bracelets, and started counting the beads. He remembered Fun Ghoul showing hir how his real rosary worked, telling hir the prayers he’d say on each bead before he went to bed. Back then, he’d never seen someone die, not in person. After he and Ghoul had become, well, Party and Ghoul, when they and their friends started fighting against BLI, Party needed a way to remember those they lost. It was unthinkable to hir that he or anyone he knew could be so completely gone one day that they wouldn’t even have a grave for their soul to reside in. After the seventh death, when the names started to go fuzzy in hir mind, he’d made Ghoul let hir use his rosary after he was done with it, to count off each person, give them each their own bead. 

Eventually they’d found another rosary that Party took as hir own, and he’d used it since then, staining the beads different colors or carving shapes into them, depending on the person’s age and character. He counted off each now, reciting the names of the ones he remembered, then wrapped it back around hir wrist and went to sleep.

  
  



End file.
